Understand recorded clicks and campaign traffic

Read your link activity

1. Sign in and open Analytics. Your own link activity is included with a free account.
2. Choose a date range and, if useful, a short-link domain or short code. Apply the filter.
3. Review Recorded clicks, Likely human clicks and Detected bot clicks together.
4. Use the activity chart to locate a period. Selecting a bar or pie segment filters the report; select it again to clear that selection.
5. Find a link under Clicks per link and choose View history to explore its activity.

Report dates use UTC, which may differ from your local calendar date. Available retained history, selected filters and deleted links affect what appears. These reports are not a complete record of all lifetime activity.

Premium adds period comparisons, exports and Campaign Insights, alongside additional analytics tools.

Example: newsletter versus social traffic

Suppose you share one workshop registration page in two places. Create a separate short link for each placement so their activity can be compared.

1. On the home page, paste your registration destination and open Campaign link builder.
2. For the newsletter version, use the same campaign name you intend to use across placements, such as autumn-workshop, with source newsletter and medium email.
3. Choose Use this destination, review it and shorten the link. Applying campaign labels alone does not save a short link.
4. Repeat for social sharing with campaign autumn-workshop, source instagram and medium social.
5. Share the matching link in each place. With Premium, open Campaign Insights, choose a period and compare source and medium under the campaign.

Keep campaign spelling and capitalization consistent: campaign names are case-sensitive. Campaign Insights uses labels currently saved in destination URLs; editing labels can regroup historical activity. Its performance totals exclude bot-flagged clicks, so they can differ from recorded-click totals elsewhere.

What the numbers mean

Recorded clicks

Recorded redirect visits. Repeat visits and automated requests can be included; this is not a unique-person count.

Likely human clicks

Visits not identified as automated. Bot classification is an estimate, not proof that each visit came from a person.

QR-origin visits

Visits carrying the marker used in generated QR addresses. Forwarding that address preserves its marker. Older QR codes and unmarked history may not be distinguishable.

Direct or missing referring site

Apps, privacy settings and missing referral headers can produce this value. It does not prove someone typed or bookmarked the URL.

Period comparison

A comparison with the preceding period under the same report filters. A percentage change based on a small number of clicks can be misleading.

To measure purchases or registrations, use a suitable measurement method at the destination. Short-link click analytics alone does not establish a conversion.

Troubleshoot missing or unexpected activity